last weekend

This last weekend has been to put it plainly, epic.  I spent a day at my friend Josh's house with our friend Melissa, where we watched Gladiator and the Princess Bride, we ate awesome food, talked about Asian missions, had a Value Village adventure, and ate ridiculous amounts of ice cream at Ron's, a classic Yakima place.  I'm now Facebook friends with two of my future residents via the Dykstra Hall Facebook group, and I got to do my job by answering the same questions I asked about laundry and closets and rice cookers and such.  We went blueberry picking at Josh's family friend's farm which was super cool, and met up with our friend Katie.  Then we set out on a most epic of adventure to Boulder Cave.  The drive itself was beautiful.  We hiked to the waterfall, which ends in cave.  I've definitely gotten a lot braver this summer.  Climbing through the creek and up and over the rocks didn't scare me at all- it would have scared me at the beginning of the summer, but it didn't.  It was straight up fun.  I sat under the waterfall, splashed my friends and swam around the bottom.  We went through a small cave which was cool.  Then we started hiking down the creek, through a ravine.  I love Tevas, I was just splashing through the creek as happy as could be, enjoying God's creation and being with my friends and just appreciating how much I've grown this summer.  Words cannot describe.  It was amazing.  Then we caught up to eight more of our friends who had come from camp that morning.  We went down a natural water slide.  It took all of three seconds but was still super fun.  Screaming.  Laughing.  Fellowship.  Together.  We hiked all the way down the creek and then back up to the trail.  There was one point where there was no bank and we were just wading through with steep rocks on either side.  So fun.  I love being adventurous.  I rode back with Katie, listening to techno and Needtobreathe, and we went to a tiny diner in Naches for dinner.  The food took forever, but it meant we got to have great conversation.  I rode back to camp with friends and we listened to Tim Hawkins and watched the sunset.  Great day.  Epic day.  Came back, watched 27 dresses and chatted with Krystal at the Sundeck. So fun.  So awesome.  God is so good.  I had been praying, as silly as it sounds, for an amazing weekend.  I just gave my weekend up to God and He delighted me totally.
The next day:  I woke up and went and had a great quiet time outside.  I love camp.  Its so beautiful.  I hung out with friends, and then we had lunch and started our debriefing process.  We had an hour on our own to look over the questions and just reflect.  I spent it in the zipline, with Needtobreathe and Hope chapel music.  Great time.  Then we got together and started listing things off and putting them on a giant whiteboard timeline.  It was really cool to hear how people have grown and to see everyone's summer portrayed at once.  I've grown in confidence enormously, and I've gotten a lot braver.  God gives us the hard times to prove to us that we need Him.  He's been there this whole summer.  That's the amazing part.  That is why I love and serve my God.  I lifeguarded for the guest group for an hour and had a great conversation with one of my fellow lifeguards.  Back in Pondy, I laid on the floor with a couple friends in a giant pile.  I love those.  Snuggling is the best.  After dinner, I took an adventure walk around camp with my friend Emma who has been there for me since lifeguard training.  We are super similar, and she's just a great person to talk to.  Then came my favorite part of the day.  We each had two minutes for everyone to encourage us.  Two minutes of people shouting out encouragement and affirmation to you.  It was great.  I didn't know what people thought of me, and its cool to hear other's perspectives about yourself.  I was called mama bird, a great speaker, a great listener, and "purple" (even amounts of passion and peace) among other things.  Then we had a camp fire up at Vesper.  Prayer, worship, awkward family photos, s'mores, stars.  A great end to a great day, our last time to be completely together.  We gave one of the guys a reverses mohawk when we came back down (he looks ridiculous) and that was about it.  I've had the blessing of working with a really amazing group of people this summer.  I'm going to miss them loads.